


The Abe Takaya Toothbrush Chronicles

by eeveestho



Category: Ookiku Furikabutte | Big Windup!
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-05
Updated: 2015-02-05
Packaged: 2018-03-10 14:25:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3293699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eeveestho/pseuds/eeveestho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It seems that the only way Abe can figure out what his heart wants is by brushing his teeth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Abe Takaya Toothbrush Chronicles

**Author's Note:**

> Written in honour of the infamous "Do I have friends" toothbrush revelation god bless

Many accomplished people throughout time have used strange rituals in order to do their remarkable work. Benjamin Franklin sat for half an hour nude in front of an open window at the start of each day to get his mind working. Edith Sitwell would lie in an open coffin in order to gain inspiration for her poetry. Agatha Christie ate apples in the bath to help her brainstorm plots for her murder mysteries.

For Abe Takaya, the twice-daily act of brushing his teeth was the thing that helped him think, especially in matters of the heart. In fact, most big revelations in his life came when he was standing in the bathroom in his pajamas, staring at his own reflection, mulling over the day to come or the day that was finishing, mechanically cleaning his teeth.

It was perhaps this lack of distraction, this perfect peace wherein it was just Abe and his own brain alone, that created the emotional clarity that he otherwise lacked the rest of the day.

 

**_2 October 2003 (age 15)_ **

Abe woke that morning much the same way he did any other morning: grumpy, stiff, and with his blanket somehow halfway on the floor. 

Wiping the sleep from his eyes, he shuffled his way out of his bedroom and down the stairs, following his nose to the kitchen table, where his mother and father were already having breakfast. The sun wasn't up yet, but both he and his father had to leave the house early. He had baseball practice, and his father had the 90 minute commute to his office in the city. 

Abe ate breakfast silently, as he always did, and his mind began to wake up and organize the day to come in his mind. Baseball practice, first off. He hoped Mihashi had eaten enough. Sometimes he slept in and missed breakfast. If there was anything Abe had learned, it was that a fed Mihashi was a happy Mihashi. Then, there was school... Today was Thursday, so that meant math, PE, history, and English. Mostly easy -- except for English. Then, more baseball... Oh, he needed to give Mihashi his notes on the batting preferences of Aoba for their upcoming game against them... Mihashi had been having trouble pitching to the inside lately, he should check that Mihashi was stretching properly...

Before he knew it, his plate was cleared, and he rose to go get ready, not wasting any time. He had learned, from half a year of getting up at the crack of dawn, that he needed exactly 35 minutes from the time his alarm went off to the time he walked out the door to get ready. He went to the bathroom, relieved himself, washed his face, and began to brush his teeth. 

As he brushed, his phone, resting on the edge of the counter, vibrated loudly against the tile. He glanced down, clamping his toothbrush between his teeth, and flipped his phone open to see that he had a text message from his pitcher. 

[From: Mihashi Ren]  
[To: Abe Takaya]  
[Subj: good morning!!]  
[i made 2 bentous last night so abe-kun could have 1! is that ok??]

Abe stared down at the text, giddy warmth blooming in his chest. Mihashi had been working on his cooking skills lately, and whenever he had extra, he gave some to Tajima or Abe.  
Setting his phone back down on the counter, he started brushing his teeth again, mouth bared in a natural grin. Abe didn't want to disparage his own mother's cooking skills, but... A lunch from Mihashi was somehow different. Maybe it was the way he cooked the rice, or the way he seasoned the vegetables...

His hand paused in it's brushing, and he stared, aghast, at his own reflection. Or maybe, he thought, noticing the bubbling warmth in his gut at the text and putting two and two together, maybe he kind of had a huge, undeniable, totally inappropriate crush on his pitcher.

 

**_13 February 2004 - (age 16)_ **

"So, Takaya, did you get any chocolates from any girls today?" his mother asked, smiling kindly at him as he shoveled lukewarm food into his face. He had just gotten home from a particularly rainy baseball practice, and only his sense of self-preservation -- as well as his loudly growling stomach -- had made him sit down at the table and not just collapse onto his bed.

Abe swallowed a particularly large mouthful of food before answering. "Why would they?" he asked, furrowing his eyebrows together.

His father, sitting in front of the television, snorted. "That's a hard 'no'." Abe glared at the back of his head, as venomously as he could manage in his exhausted state.

"Because tomorrow's Valentines Day," his mother reminded him gently. "Didn't girls give out chocolate today? Since tomorrow is Saturday."

He thought for a moment. Now that he considered, people did seem to be a lot rowdier today. And people did seem to be carrying a lot of chocolate. 

"Oh. Well that makes sense," he said with a shrug.

His mother let out a sigh, crossing her arms on the kitchen table where she sat. "Didn't you get anything from... what's her name? That cute manager girl, with the pigtails."

"Shinooka? ...I mean, she did make cookies for everyone in the club." Abe paused to consider this. "Did that count?"

Abe couldn't tell if his father was laughing at the television or at him. Glancing over, it was currently showing an advertisement for heartburn medication, so he seriously doubted it was that. 

Finishing his dinner as quickly as he could to avoid his parents' teasing about his lack of a social life -- a favourite pastime of theirs -- he was glad to be able to return to the safe refuge of his room. Every muscle in his body ached; Momokan, in her infinite wisdom/sadism, had them play a practice match, to "take advantage of the adverse conditions". Most teams would probably call it a day. They weren't so lucky. 

As he brushed his teeth, he turned the question his mother had posed him over in his mind. He had honestly forgotten it was Valentine's Day the next day. It was a silly holiday, really. He never got any chocolates, nor did he particularly want to. None of the girls in his classes had ever piqued his interest, and it was honestly easier to be ignored than to have to deal with all of that.

Really, the only person who he wanted chocolates from was...

Wait.

He had gotten chocolates from someone that day. He had thought nothing of it, accepted the bag of chocolates gratefully as another product of improving cooking skills.

Toothbrush still between his lips, Abe rushed out of the bathroom, down the hall, and into his room, where his sodden schoolbag lay at the foot of his bed. He unzipped it, fished around inside it, and, seizing upon the cellophane wrapper, pulled it out.

There, in the palm of his hand, was a bag of tiny heart-shaped milk chocolates, decorated with tiny white chocolate dots, that Mihashi had given him at the end of afternoon practice.

He stared at them, his once groggy mind kickstarted into a furor of confusion and hope. He knew, academically, that there were two types of Valentine's Day chocolates: obligation chocolates, and romantic chocolates. If they were obligation chocolates, Mihashi would have given some to everyone else on the team, or at least the teammates he was close with like Tajima. If they were the other kind...

Abe scrabbled to his feet, to his bedside table where his cellphone sat. He had never typed out a text message so quickly before.

[From: Abe Takaya]  
[To: Tajima Yuuichirou]  
[Subj: (none)]  
[Did you get any chocolates from anyone today?]

He sat on the edge of his bed, staring down at his phone expectantly. Tajima could be asleep by now. There was no guarantee of a reply at this hour. Abe faintly registered that he still had his toothbrush between his lips, and that toothpaste was beginning to run down the side of his mouth.

Then, the phone buzzed with a reply, and he nearly broke it hitting the enter key.

[From: Tajima Yuuichirou]  
[To: Abe Takaya]  
[Subj: Re: (none)]  
[only shinookas cookies lolol orz]

Abe's heart was beating like a jackhammer against his ribs. He was the only one, it seemed, to get chocolate from Mihashi. Just him. Mihashi had made him, him specifically, chocolates. Heart-shaped chocolates. On Valentine's Day. (Or, close enough to it.)

The trail of toothpaste dribbling down the side of his mouth reached his chin, and a glob of spearmint-flavoured spit dropped onto his pajama pants. Was it possible that... that Mihashi liked him too??

 

**_July 2 2004 - morning (age 16)_ **

It always was a bit alarming to wake up in a hotel room. There was always that moment of confusion where you forgot where you were, why you were there, and what the hell was happening with your life.

But Abe rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, looked over at the alarm clock, and then looked over at his boyfriend, asleep in the other bed.

He smiled softly at Mihashi, sprawled out on his side towards him, his fluffy hair sticking up at odd angles from moving around during the night, his mouth open, snoring (more loudly than Mihashi would admit), drooling more than a little onto the pillow. 

Seriously, Mihashi was just too freaking cute. It was unfair. 

Abe rose from bed with a muted groan, his muscles aching as he stretched. They were on their now-annual Koshien pilgrimage trip, and once again he and Mihashi were sharing a room. 

Things were different this time. Only a year had passed, but things were so, so different. They were a bigger team. Abe's leg wasn't sprained. They had become a powerhouse school. He and Mihashi were dating.

Although, he thought grumpily as he relieved himself in the bathroom, they still slept in different beds. Shiga-sensei had said he was going to be stopping by and checking on them all that night to make sure they were actually asleep, and none of them knew how seriously to take that threat. Just in case, Mihashi said that they had to sleep in separate beds. Abe had been reluctant -- half of the appeal of this trip was the chance for some romantic alone time with his boyfriend -- but the threat of punishment, possibly getting kicked off the team, silenced his protests. Plus, they did fool around a fair bit before bed, so. He couldn't be that unhappy.

Even though he was in an unfamiliar hotel in an unfamiliar city, Abe was a man of habit: he relieved himself, he washed his face, and he brushed his teeth, just like he did every morning in his own bathroom back in Saitama.

As he brushed his teeth, he heard the rhythmic, not-so-gentle snoring stutter to a halt, and be replaced with soft, sleepy sighs and creaking of bedsprings. Mihashi was up then, he thought, smiling at his own reflection. He had woken up next to the pitcher a few times before, but sleepy Mihashi was still one of his favourite Mihashis. He could honestly wake up every day to that face for the rest of his life. He was so in love with Mihashi.

It took him a few seconds before the rational side of his brain caught up, and luckily, it was already after he had spit the toothpaste out of his mouth, or else he might have choked on it. Abe stared at himself in the mirror, horror-struck. Did... did he just say that he loved Mihashi?

No, no. It was just hyperbole. It was way too early for that. He was sixteen! They had been dating for only 5 months!! He was just being a stupid teenager. Everyone did this. It didn't mean that it was love.

He filled one of the hotel's plastic disposable cups up with water and rinsed with it, scowling at himself angrily in the mirror. He needed to stop being a stereotype and be rational about this.

But, all of that resolve and determination to not be in love utterly abandoned him when he stepped out of the bathroom to see Mihashi, sleep-rumpled and bleary eyed, smiling sleepily at him. "Good morning, Takaya," he hummed.

Abe felt his heart jump into his throat and explode into fireworks of hot, dizzying happiness. Yeah, okay. Maybe he was in love.

 

**_March 23 2006- evening (age 18)_ **

"Are you sure Sasahara isn't going to come back tonight??" Abe asked, looking over at Mihashi's roommate's empty bed suspiciously, as if expecting him to appear there.

"Yes! He, he promised," Mihashi chirped, swiveling around in his desk chair to look at Abe. "I told him that you were.... sleeping over." His gaze skittered away from Abe's sentence sheepishly.

He grinned at him devilishly over the top of his biology textbook. "Is that what you want to do tonight? Sleep?"

Abe watched with satisfaction as Mihashi swiveled quickly around to look at his laptop again, hiding his face from Abe. He still hadn't figured out that when he blushed, the tips of his ears turned pink. He wasn't planning on telling him.

"Any luck with the apartment searching?" he asked, rolling over onto his side, only half-heartedly studying. His final exam was in a week. He had time to study another day, when he wasn't alone with his boyfriend.

He shook his head. "Not, not yet."

Their first year of university was coming to an end. At the university Mihashi was going to, only first years were guaranteed a spot in the dorms. Older students either had to try their luck with the housing lottery, or find housing off-campus. Mihashi was currently looking into the former, as he had been doing all week, and wasn't having much luck. His parents couldn't afford to pay for Mihashi to live in an apartment by himself, so he was looking for vacant rooms in shared houses or apartments.

Abe's university, about a 45 minute train ride away from Mihashi's school, was smaller, and therefore didn't even have dorms. He was currently living in a co-op with 5 other students, who were rowdy as hell and who Abe tried to avoid whenever possible.

"Okay, well, I'm going to get ready for bed," Abe said with a yawn, shutting his textbook with a snap. "I keep reading the same sentence over and over."

Mihashi made an affirmative sort of noise, not looking away from the computer, and Abe rolled off the bed, put Mihashi's slippers on, and padded out of his room and down the hall to the communal bathrooms, Mihashi's toiletries bag in hand. 

Dorm life was really overrated, Abe thought as he brushed at his teeth with the extra toothbrush Mihashi kept in his bag for him. They were there to study, but there was never any peace. Always some party, or some idiot yelling way past curfew, or your roommates going for a marathon sex session...

Roommates or a co-op was no better. You were still signing up to live with a bunch of strangers with weird habits and weird hours and just... weirdness. It would be better to live with someone you knew, someone you trusted, someone who you could rely upon to care about you and your goddamn sleep. 

As he switched from brushing his bottom teeth to his top teeth, it hit him. 

Why not move in with Mihashi?

They could share a single room apartment. It wouldn't cost either of them more than dorms or a room in a shared house. And... they could live together. Just the two of them. There would be no need to wait for the roommate to leave. They could do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted.

He spit out the toothpaste and rinsed his mouth as quickly as he could, trying not to outright sprint down the hallway back to Mihashi's room. Excitement was bubbling up in him, turning him giddy. It was perfect! This was perfect!!

"I... don't know if that's a good idea, Takaya."

Abe gaped at him, still panting slightly from his not-running return to the room. "What do you mean?"

Mihashi wasn't meeting his eyes. "I mean... we go to different schools."

"We can find something in between them!"

He was still staring very determinedly down at the carpet, near his bookshelf. "What if we can't?"

"Then we can find something closer to your school! You need to get up early for baseball practice, I don't. I can take the train, I don't mind."

His gaze skittered, down to the carpet by his bedpost, where Abe's feet were. "Well... What if... what if it's too expensive?"

"It would be the same price as sharing an apartment with anyone else!"

Mihashi looked up a bit now, his gaze lingering somewhere around Abe's navel. "I snore!"

"I don't care!"

Higher still, at his chest now. "I'm really messy!"

"I don't care!"

Golden, hot eyes locked onto his. "You'll get sick of me and hate me after a month! You'll break up with me and never talk to me again!"

Abe stared at Mihashi, his mouth flapping wordlessly. Cold shock ran through him, ice spreading through his veins and numbing him. That's what this was about? That's why Mihashi didn't want to move in with him.

Those golden eyes began to glisten with tears, although his gaze did not budge from Abe's face now. His lower lip was trembling, in the way it always did when he was trying his damndest not to cry.

Abe's voice found its way to his mouth again. "Ren... I would never ever hate you."

The floodgates opened, and Mihashi's face crumpled in on itself. "Yes you will," he sobbed, skinny arms crossing over his torso, shielding himself. Shielding himself from Abe. "You will. I don't know why you haven't... already..."

In two strides, Abe had his arms around Mihashi, holding him close, trying to hold him tight enough to stop the shuddering of his sobs wracking his body. "I love you," he murmured, into the crown of Mihashi's fluffy hair. "I love you so much, Ren."

They stood like that for awhile, Mihashi crying hard into his shoulder, Abe holding him close, occasionally murmuring an affirmation of love or kissing his forehead, letting him cry it all out.

After the sobs had ceased and Mihashi pulled his wet face out of the crook of Abe's neck, Abe let out a sigh of tension. "Look, just... think about it, okay? I can look for apartments, if you want. Okay? I promise you, I want this. I want you."

Mihashi nodded mutely. Abe sighed a little again; that was probably the best he was going to get today. 

Later, as they were falling asleep, holding hands like they always did, Mihashi's voice whispered into the darkness, "I... I want to live with Takaya."

"Okay," he murmured back, rubbing his thumb over the back of Mihashi's hand. "Okay."

The last thought Abe had before he drifted off to sleep, warmed by the heat radiating through Mihashi's hand into his own palm, was that nowhere would really be home unless Mihashi was there with him.

 

**_May 17 2011 - evening (age 23)_ **

"Hurry up!" Abe yelled, grimacing at the closed bathroom door. "Holding in my pee for this long is bad!! I don't want to get a UTI, Ren!!"

"It's been three minutes!" Mihashi called back through the door. "Calm down."

"I'm gonna die, my bladder's going to explode," he groaned, collapsing melodramatically against the doorframe.

"You sound like Tajima."

Abe shut up immediately at that comment, although he couldn't help himself from hopping foot to foot in an attempt to alleviate the unpleasant pressure in his gut.

Finally, blessedly, Mihashi emerged from the bathroom, pink-faced and smelling minty fresh. "Okay, your turn," he said, his lips pursed in a slight smirk as Abe ran into the bathroom past him. He didn't bother to close the door -- there was no time for such frivolities. 

"Takaya, you're gross," Mihashi called from their adjoining bedroom. "Shut the door!"

Abe scoffed, but didn't yell back. Mihashi had seen him naked enough times for Abe not to care anymore. Honestly, once you've seen your boyfriend stark naked folding towels, the whole allure of nudity is kind of lost.

Not that that was necessarily a bad thing, Abe thought as he washed his hands, his bladder now relieved. They had lived together for five years, and although the first year or so was exciting and novel, they had settled into a rhythm. Mihashi would go to to practice, Abe would go to school, they would come home in the evening and collapse onto each other and watch bad movies on Netflix. It was nice. It was safe. It was home.

Abe began to brush his teeth, smiling at himself in the mirror as he did so. He was happy. Life was good. He was in med school, on track to becoming a physiotherapist. He had a decent apartment in the city. He had a stunning, amazing boyfriend who played baseball professionally. It was the dream, really. 

The only thing missing...

He glanced down at his bare left ring finger, resting against the edge of the bathroom counter.

Grinning more widely at his own reflection now, he spit out the toothpaste in the sink. As he filled the rinse cup up with tap water, Abe wondered exactly how much it would cost to rent the field at Koushien for 15 minutes or so.

 

**_June 2, 2013 - morning (age 25)_ **

"Ugh, Takaya, breath," Mihashi groaned, wrinkling his nose as he pulled away from his good morning kiss.

"But I love you," Abe hummed, grinning lazily at him. "We just got married. I want to kiss my husband. Is that so wrong?"

He frowned back. "But Takaya. Breath."

"I could get up and brush my teeth if you wanted?" he offered, beginning to pull away from Mihashi.

That iron grip of a pitcher that he so dearly loved held him in place. "No, that's okay."

"So... you'll kiss me?"

Mihashi smiled. "Yes."

And, for once, Abe Takaya didn't need to brush his teeth to realize that this was the way he wanted to spend the rest of his life.


End file.
